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Political Correctness Gone Too Far
By admin | July 1, 2008
A serious debate has heated up in the Swedish blogosphere on Monday after an eight-year-old boy’s failure to invite two classmates to his birthday party resulted in a complaint filed with parliament. Nearly 200 outraged comments had been posted on the website of the local southern Swedish daily Sydsvenskan on Monday, just days after the paper reported about the unlikely string of events that followed a young boy’s decision to invite all of his classmates to his birthday party except two.
The policy at the boy’s school in the southern town of Lund was that all children (or all the boys or all the girls) had to be invited to parties when their invitations were handed out in class. When a teacher noticed that two children had been left out of a party list, she promptly confiscated all the invitations, according to Sydsvenskan.
“Two people in class had not been invited, and that is not allowed. The ones who were not invited felt sad and left out,” the school principal, who was not named, told the paper.
The boy’s father meanwhile decided to file a complaint with the Swedish parliamentary ombudsman, insisting his son’s rights had been trampled on. He told the paper that the two boys in question should not have been surprised that they had not made the guest list. “One of them did not invite my son to his birthday and the other has bullied my son for six months. You don’t invite your antagonists to a birthday party,” he was quoted as saying, adding that he had not been aware of the school policy.
“My son feels terrible about this. No one has the right to confiscate anyone’s property in this way. It’s just like stealing mail,” he added. Most of the comments posted on Sydsvenskan’s website appeared to take the father’s side
The parliamentary ombudsman is scheduled to rule in the case on September 8. This PC BS has gone way too far, a child should be able to invite whomever they want to their own birthday party.
Topics: Odd News, Stress of Parenting, Joys of Parenting, Kids, Kids, Kids, Parenting News |
July 1st, 2008 at 9:47 pm
Im from Sweden and I live close to Lund. This thing is kinda big atm, and though it may seem silly its not even close to what americans go to court for.
July 1st, 2008 at 9:56 pm
Simple solution - Do not hand out party invitations in class. Sorted.
July 1st, 2008 at 10:14 pm
dont pass out party invites in class thats common sense
cuz if u do you’ll cause the entire internet community to tell u ur a bad parent
butterfly effect
July 1st, 2008 at 11:55 pm
The way I read this, the child’s right to invite whom he wants to his birthday party has not been abridged. His privilege to distribute invitations at school is limited to either his whole class or none. Does not Sweden have a postal system? Couldn’t his father have mailed the invitations to whomever he liked? I see both sides of the issue. I would not have wanted my son’s bully to be invited. The school does not want to have invitations given out at school if some classmates are uninvited. School is not a place to have a child feel unwanted. They can get enough of that at home.
July 2nd, 2008 at 1:09 am
First, it’s not political correctness we’re talking about here. Expecting all children to treat each other respectfully in a school isn’t politics, it’s politeness, which is what most things people label as “PC” boil down to. Next time you catch yourself thinking, “I’m sick of all this PC bullshit”, try saying, “I’m sick of all this politeness bullshit”. As a parent that idea should make you think twice about what your kid gleans from an attitude like that.
Second, way to treat his son about “being the bigger man”. Instead he defends the idea that if someone treats you like shit then by all means treat them like crap too.
I’m not saying I agree with the idea of confiscating the invitations and all that, but the father is being just as nearsighted and immature as he thinks the policy is. If he doesn’t want his kid to invite the other two then perhaps he could simply have mailed the invitations instead of handing them out in class, then it really WOULD be mail, instead of some loose metaphor that he tries to whine about.
Lastly, if these two kids don’t like his child as much as he seems to think then they probably wouldn’t have come anyway, and if they did, who knows, they may have become friends. THAT is the attitude a real adult should have.
July 2nd, 2008 at 2:15 am
The parent should have thought ahead and made fake invitations for the two who were not to be invited.
July 2nd, 2008 at 2:38 am
The world today is so real. I’m gone
July 2nd, 2008 at 2:54 am
Ridiculousness lies on all sides of this debate. Sure, the child has a right to invite whomever he chooses to his party, as long as the invitations are sent out privately. However, they opted to pass out invitations at school, which brings the action under regulated public domain. All the father and son needed to do was go through the trouble of mailing out the invitations rather than passing them out at school, and the whole problem could have been avoided. The father seems intent on doing the one thing the rule was created to prevent–singling out children as socially undesirable. No matter how the two other children have acted toward his son, dad just comes across as a petty, vindictive douche.
July 2nd, 2008 at 5:08 am
That’s it. I’ve lost all hope in humanity. If any of you out there are still sane and want to help out, I’m going to start murdering everyone on July 10th 15:00 GMT. The goal is to not stop killing until there is no one left that would call for an act of parliament over a kids birthday party invitation list.
Its surprising that any children at all can grow up to be half decent today with parents and teachers that appear to have the social intellect of a used condom.
July 2nd, 2008 at 6:18 am
Is it my imagination or is big brother all over the place?
I feel bad about what happened to you, and about whats happening to your country. I always thought your Country was the last in the World to take away freedoms. I am very sad. What is happening?
Don Reid
July 3rd, 2008 at 1:26 am
Man, that is such BS, it’s not the school’s place to step in like that! I hope parliament rules in the Boy’s favor.
July 3rd, 2008 at 3:23 pm
So what’s the poltically correct bit that’s gone too far? The teacher confiscating the invites, or the father filing a complaint with parliament?
Can’t see that either has anything to do with political correctness. The teacher confiscating the invites is overly draconian in enforcing school rules, but that’s not politically correct. The father complaining to parliament is over-reacting, but again, don’t see how that’s politically correct either.
July 3rd, 2008 at 9:54 pm
No one has the right to confiscate anyone’s property in this way. It’s just like stealing mail,”–send them through the Post Office then, asshole.
July 4th, 2008 at 4:22 am
All schools have this policy and I am SURE that the father of the child was aware of the school rule. Every school I have ever come across has this rule (and I have been schooled in Euro and here in the US) and its 100% fair that EVERY child be on the invite list if the invites are going home during school time. Everyone knows that if the whole class (or all the boys only or all the girls only) are not being invited that the invites should be passed out in the parking lot or by mail. It should NOT be done in class where the none invited students are to be made aware…bully, not nice kid or whatever! This is pretty much a universal rule among parents and a official rule at most if not all schools.
July 4th, 2008 at 11:59 pm
That is ridiculous. I can’t believe the school has such a ludicrous policy. And Sweden always seems to treat people fairly well, too. Well, I’m sure the ruling will be in favor of the eight year old’s father.
July 5th, 2008 at 7:13 pm
PC is ridiculous. You can’t please all the people all the time and trying to force it on everyone is wrong. If someones feelings are hurt, too bad. The world is a rough place and does not care if you are happy all the time. I am offended by politicians who do nothing productive in office but line their pockets and their cronies pockets with my tax dollars, but want me to say “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” because some Muslim, Jew, or atheist would be offended. If you are offended by my opinions that’s too damn bad. I don’t care. You can have your own opinions, just allow me to have mine. Isn’t that what freedom is supposed to be about?
July 5th, 2008 at 8:01 pm
thats what they get for being bullies
July 8th, 2008 at 5:47 am
Where the heck is common sense going? We can do what ever it is we wish, and if we do not wish to invite two people to our parties, so be it, it is our decision.
December 9th, 2008 at 5:51 am
What a bunch of bull, growing up I never got invited to any parties other than my friends, kids would hand out or just ask other kids if they wanted to come to their party during lunch or recess, and in high school, between class. and yeah, i go to school in America…
January 9th, 2009 at 5:07 am
We would invite or not invite people to birthdays at my elementary school all the time. We knew who are friends were and who they weren’t, so it really wasn’t a shock when some kid I never talked to didn’t invite me to his birthday party. I certainly didn’t feel left out, and I certainly wouldn’t want to go.
Either way, I guess school policy, as absurd as it seems to me, is school policy and the father should have mailed or phoned the parents.
To be honest though school is a convenient way of handing out invites since everyone is there in one location.
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